Elliott Wave theory says that a bull cycle has five waves, and if you look at the chart of Facebook Inc, it looks very probable that the stock has completed its bull cycle. Facebook embarked on its bull run in September 2012 from a low of $17.55. The high seen so far is $79.71, a huge gain indeed. Let us now look at come Elliott Wave charts of Facebook. You should use this example as a supplement to my Elliott Wave book – “Five Waves to Financial Freedom”. Almost the first thing you can see is Facebook has completed five waves in its bull run. You will also see that I use the term ‘probably’ or “highly likely’ in my descriptions because that is the right approach when using Elliott Waves for your trading and investment decisions. There is no tool in the world that gives you a definite answer about the future, and when dealing with the financial markets, it pays to always keep in mind that you are trying to determine the odds of something happening, rather than the certainty. Elliott Wave Theory gives you the framework to do this analysis, and your confidence grows as you see the ‘crowd’ behaving as anticipated by the theory. As you read further, I suggest you open the charts in a new tab.

It is easy to see 5 waves in a completed bull cycle as shown in this Facebook chart

Interestingly, wave 2 took a lot of time in correcting the wave 1, but it went quite deep, just a shade over the 61.8% level. You will recognize that 61.8% is a pretty important Fibonacci Ratio. Now the key point here is this. Even as early as Q3 of 2013, you would have said to yourself that once the third wave develops, the next correction, namely, wave 4, would be deep and will happen relatively quickly. This is the principle of alternation. Please refer to FWTFF for more information on that, but there are many more examples in this free blog too.

Facebook Wave 2 corrected wave 1 by 61.8%

A smart investor would have been ready to buy Facebook as it rallied up from the 61.8% retracement because we were then in a 3rd wave. As many of you probably know, wave 3 of any impulse bull market is the strongest up move, and it also has the highest chance of becoming an extended wave. In the case of Facebook, its wave 3 went to a measure of 323.6% of wave 1, as shown in the next Elliott Wave chart.

Facebook wave 3 was an extended wave

Now some of you might wonder about my use of 323.6% as this is not a ratio that has been discussed by Frost & Prechter. During my over 30-years of dealing with financial markets and experience with Elliott Waves over that time, I have seen this ratio often enough to include it in my offering to the fund of knowledge. You can find many more examples in Wavetimes.com.

The main challenge for traders is to figure out WHERE an extended wave will end. Unfortunately, there is no certainty about that, and anyone who attempts to pick a top during an extending third wave is honestly asking for trouble. However, once the correction starts, in the case of Facebook, it was bound to be swift because, remember, wave 2 took long to develop! Take a look at the following Elliott Wave chart to see this.

Facebook wave 4 was shallow but sharp

The final stages of the bull run begins with wave 5. As with all impulse waves, this wave 5 needs to have its own set of five sub waves, and incredibly, these sub waves are also related to each other quite like the waves of the larger degree. But first see how one could have anticipated the end of wave 5 by computing 161.8% measure of wave 1 and adding it to the bottom of wave 4.

Anticipating the end of wave 5 of the bull cycle

And to add come confirmation, we can look at the relationships of the sub waves of wave 5 as shown below.

Now that I have shown you how to read a chart using the clues that Elliott Wave theory gives us, you should attempt to anticipate how the ensuing bear cycle will pan out. One clue I can give you is the correction will travel a distance greater than the larger of the two prior corrective waves. A second clue is the correction will take more time than wave 2 did. If you are an investor who is seeking to buy Facebook, it might be a good idea to focus on some other stock for the next several months while Facebook goes about its business of being moved back and forth by a fickle market. Eventually, it WILL come down by the measures discussed above and that is the right time to invest in this stock for its next bull run.

25 Oct 2014 UPDATE:
The recovery in the last few days to a new high has brought back the need to recompute the targets for the end of wave 5. Here are two more charts to guide you.

The goal of this blog is to share with you some of my experience and teach you how to use Elliott Waves. My other website, wavetimes.net, is where I discuss live trades.

C.R.Bard, Inc designs, manufactures, packages, distributes and sell medical, surgical, diagnostic and patient care devices. Its market cap is $10.48 billion and the stock posted its 52-week high at $150.13 on April Fool’s day. Why are we looking at this stock? It is because it has the distinction of being the top loser on the S&P index yesterday! Elliot Wave analysis of C.R.Bard Inc shows some interesting patterns. As you know, Elliott Wave Principle holds that once a five wave move is completed in an upward direction, we should look out for a large move on the opposite direction. Elliott Wave analysts look for Fibonacci relationships between the various waves in order to validate their conclusions. If you take a look at the first chart below, we can see that wave 5 finished exactly at a 61.8% measure of the distance from the starting point 0 to the end of wave 3. This has been covered in detail in my Elliott Wave book “Five Waves to Financial Freedom”.

Elliott Wave Theory further holds that each of the three impulse waves that are seen in the broad five wave rally will have its own subset of five waves. You can clearly observe this phenomenon from the next Elliott Wave chart. Interestingly, you can see that not only the third wave is made up of five sub waves, but even the third wave within the third wave has its own minor five waves. Moreover, sub wave v inside the third wave finished exactly at a Fibonacci measure (50%) of the distance from 0 to iii.

The final chart shows how we can figure out some targets for the next leg of the large correction that is expected. We measure 138.2% of the distance traveled by the first move down and project that distance from the top of wave B. The target for the C wave is thus around 125.75. It is important to understand that no move will be a straight line move. However, generally speaking, C waves tend to travel fast and so anyone who is still nursing a long position is well advised to get out of that position on any recovery.

The charts and analyses posted in this blog are for educational purposes, and supplement what you learnt in my book FWTFF. I have another website, www.wavetimes.net which offers serious traders an opportunity to learn how to trade the market using my techniques.

————27 June 2014 update.

A member asked about the internal waves of the C wave.Take a look at the chart below. We did not reach 125.75, but did manage to get to 135.80 after first recovering to 142.37. That was a decent enough move for most people. THe key point is when we have a trade, we need to watch how the market is moving. Elliott Waves is not a black box. When the minor 4th wave reached 142.37 and it started coming off, we have to get ready for the end of the move. I have explained in FWTFF how to compute these end points. One should lighten up the exposures starting from the earliest target. I use Elliott Waves to trade, not to make predictions. Sure, the target was 125.75, but if I wait indefinitely for that target to be reached even when new information is being presented, it will be an incorrect application of the wave principle. Enjoy.

Alliant Energy Corporation (NYSE: LNT) has been part of David Van Knapp’s Dividend Growth Portfolio since 2010. In his article in Seeking Alpha, David celebrates the 6th birthday of his portfolio and showcases the stocks that go into that portfolio. The first stock in the list of 18 stocks is Alliant Energy Corporation.

As most of you know, I look at stocks from an Elliott Wave perspective first, and so decided to do a detailed study of Alliant Energy Corporation. Elliott Wave analysis is a method that many professional investors embrace because it gives them several clues about where in the market’s progression we currently are. Briefly, Elliott Wave Analysis says that all impulse waves are made of 5 waves, and once a five wave movement is completed we should expect a correction.

Alliant Energy Corporation’s Elliott Wave charts reveal that we are in the fifth major wave higher, and within that fifth wave, we could potentially be in the fifth sub-wave. Usually, investors should start planning on a strategy to exit their holdings during this fifth-of-the-fifth wave. However, with Alliant Energy Corp the story is slightly different. The first and third waves that we have seen so far were both of normal proportions. Besides, the two corrections in wave 2 and wave 4 positions were both relatively brief. This leads one to anticipate an extended wave 5. So, we might as well be patient and wait for a move to around 60.50 before we take a fresh look at this stock. What follows are a set of 11 Elliott Wave charts of Alliant Energy. Study them carefully to see how the market seems to dance to the magic wand of Elliott Waves. Good luck. (I suggest you right click on each image and open in a new tab)

Date: 3 July 2014 Elliott Wave update for Alliant Energy Corporation
On 1st July, Alliant Energy Corp reached a high of 60.89 and today, just 2 days later, it is down at 58.25. WHat new clues are available? Take a look at this chart.

Today’s FT carries an interesting report filed by Miles Johnson, their Hedge Fund Correspondent. This report says that Seth Klarman, one of the most respected investors, has raised the alarm over a looming asset price bubble, and specifically mentions Tesla Motors , (TSLA:NSQ). He has warned of the potential for a brutal correction across financial markets. See this link: Seth Klarman warns of asset price bubble

So I decided to check out the charts for Tesla Motors to see if Elliott Waves could offer us additional clues that might help us play along with the view professed by Mr Klarman.

Take a look at the first chart below. It clearly shows that we are in the fifth wave of a move that stated back in Q3 of 2010. According to the Elliott Wave Principle, it is normal for one of the three impulse waves within a five wave sequence to be extended, i.e. for it to move a greater distance than the other two impulse waves. The chart below shows that the first and third waves were roughly equal is measure (i.e. they were of ‘normal’ proportions). This also ties in with another feature of Elliott’s observations that often enough, two impulse waves tend to be equal in dimensions. You will also observe the principle of alternation in the two corrective waves seen, whereby when wave 2 was shallow, we got a wave 4 that was deep.

The next chart shows how to anticipate a possible end point for wave 5. Because we are expecting wave 5 to be extended, one possible terminal point is at a place where wave 5 would have traveled a distance equal to that from point 0 to point 3. This comes at $295.

We will now zoom in to the fifth wave and see if the sub waves of the fifth wave can give us additional information. As you probably know, every impulse wave is composed of its own set of five sub waves. We can immediately see that sub wave (3) was extended to reach about 300% of sub wave (1). Wave (2) was 50% of wave (1) and wave (4) has already corrected to a 23.6% measure of wave (3). All these Fibonacci Ratios are common measures used by Elliott Wave Analysts to add confidence to their reading of the waves.

The final chart below uses the technique I have described in my book “Five Waves to Financial Freedom” where we measure the distance form point (0) to point (3) and compute a 38.2% and a 50% measure. These measures, when added to the bottom of wave (4) will give us potential targets for wave (5). Interestingly, if we add a 38.2% measure to wave (4) at 235, the target comes just below $295 which we already saw earlier. And should wave (4) come down some more to reach a 38.2% correction of wave (3) – that is reach $217, then we will get wave (5) to land at 291 if we add a 50% measure of (0) to (3).

Because of these confluences, we should go with the belief that there is a high probability for Tesla Motors to complete its extended fifth wave just below $295 and commence a very sharp decline that can take it all the way down to $137. This is the level where the extended fifth wave had its sub wave (2) end. There are numerous illustrations of this phenomenon explained in this blog as well as in my book so much so that I have often informed readers that fifth wave extensions can make us rich! Good luck and happy hunting.